My colleague Tjub (of the Tjublings) wanted me to draw a south sea dwarf, and so here it is! The islands of the Pacific Ocean is not the first place one would think of Dwarves for, when converting real world history to fantasy, yet the famous Rapa Nui of Easter Island did carve (and transport) Moai statues out of stone, so they, if anyone, will serve for Dwarf duty. A good distance to the west of Easter Island lie the Kiribati islands, of which the warriors of Gilbert Islands were famous for their armour (overall and cuirass) woven out of coconut fibres, which protected the warrior elite against sharp tooth weaponry during ritualized combats which were not supposed to end in the death of the enemy (which would incur a fine of lost land for the killer). The warriors also wore porcupinefish headgear to top it all off. This exotic wargear required some skilled craftsmanship to produce, which is ever a must with Dwarves. And so I present to you this concept of the Dwarves of the Lost Islands, stranded out at sea to the west of Virentia:

While by far the most of the scattered islands of the giant ocea between Augea and Virentia-Silexia are inhabited by Humans (or other sentients), a corner of this vast sea harbour a pecularity which will surprise any explorer that ever happens to come upon it. For thrown out far from land and far from other isles are to be found the Lost Islands, formed in bygone eons by volcanoes. These volcanoes deposited some rich mineral deposits on some of the islands, which the world-dominant Saurian Ancients sought to exploit during the long First Age. As such the reptilian overlords imported Dwarves from their breeding pens and silver mines in Virentia's Wrathful Mountains, and set about strip-mining the ores and gemstones. This mining operation was carried out with great investments and vigourous slavedriving, and as the skyhammer fell, the underground of the islands were all but empty of minerals. The thunderous impact of the distant comet reverberated the world over, and under the Lost Islands it pulled out reinforced masonry that held back the sea.

Enormous quantities of water crashed into the mining tunnels and devoured almost everything and everyone left down there, drowning both master and slave and dashing their corpses against the rock. Yet some Dwarven slaves survived above ground, and some others managed to find shelter in underground caves into which the water could not rise, and then succeeded in swimming out from these pockets of air. The lucky divers emerged and set their brethren above ground free, and together they drove the remaining Saurians to extinction in a vicious series of running battles. Yet this celebrated victory was also the beginning of everlasting woes, for these wayward Dwarves were lost far out at sea, with no mountains in sight and no metal to mine and forge. Thus began their long isolation, during which the Lost Islanders made do with the materials at hand, and after a fashion they crafted their items with such raw materials as coconut fibre, wood, stone, shells and shark teeth.

Although the sun warms well, in their Dwarven hearts lurks an eternal yearning for mountains, and their songs tell of their longing and plight, and their stories are filled with wondrous lands beyond the horizon, which they however cannot in reality reach.

These dwarves are just crying out to be using Rai stones as their currency.

Wikipedia wrote:

The Micronesian island of Yap is known for its stone money, known as Rai, or Fei: large doughnut-shaped, carved disks of (usually) calcite, up to 4 m (12 ft) in diameter (most are much smaller). The smallest can be as little as 3.5 centimetres (1.4 in) in diameter.[1] Rai, or stone money (Yapese: raay[2]), are more than 6,000[3] large, circular stone disks carved out of limestone formed from aragonite and calcite crystals.[4] Rai stones were quarried on several of the Micronesian islands, mainly Palau,[5] but briefly on Guam as well, and transported to Yap for use as money. They have been used in trade by the Yapese as a form of currency. The monetary system of Yap relies on an oral history of ownership. Because these stones are too large to move, buying an item with one simply involves agreeing that the ownership has changed. As long as the transaction is recorded in the oral history, it will now be owned by the person to whom it is passed and no physical movement of the stone is required.

Everything about it just fits dwarves. Made of stone. Based on tradition and history. Impractical.

It feels very Dwarfish to use a stone sunk to the bottom of the sea somewhere as a piece of currency, where it is used by orally passing it along without moving it.

Then again, thinking about it. This could of course be used as money for all dwarves everywhere.

Warhammer-Fan over on Deviantart had an idea for this corner of the equivalent of the Pacific Ocean:

Warhammer-Fan wrote:

I can't draw for crap, but I can brainstorm. Remember the Pacific Islander Dwarves? Well, what about making the Goblins they fight like the Coconut-wearing creatures in Moana? Goblins wearing purple-painted coconut armor, who sail in massive ramshackle boats?

Hi, could anyone explain these posts to me in more detail, or point me in the right direction? I'm a returning player and I completely missed the entire transition from Fantasy to Age of Sigmar and the 9th Age. I've been visiting the forum for some time and while I first thought that 9th Age was a continuation of 8th /Fantasy, I am now starting to feel lost.

I'm seeing various posts about dwarfs (and elves) with new origins, but don't understand yet how these are to fit in the game. Are these just fan made fantasies or are they to be implemented in official 9th Age gameplay somehow?

Essentially, and creatively, everything is fan-made fantasies from Tolkien and onward.

The line between official and fanmade is not as sharp as some may think, and especially not in a community-driven project like the Ninth Age. These homebrew proposals are all naturally and hopefully meant to become officially adopted in due time (what some call homebrew, I call open development). I'd urge everyone staring at a false dichotomy of fanmade or official to instead look at quality. Check out Sergio Artigas' Seven Houses of the Khâzad (Lotr) for a prime example of how one can expand and deepen fantasy races with different cultures. Artigas' work is rich, and every setting should wish to treat its races in the same fashion for a better fantasy experience.

Please see the below summary, and know that a new era of freewheeling creativity and rigorous worldbuilding is at hand. This will be more than Warhammer Fantasy ever was. Richer, broader, and eventually also deeper. And in due time maybe also funnier. Fear not; basically all the well-developed and beloved concepts from Warhammer Fantasy has been carried over to be given a home in a supported, living setting. But this setting will be about so much more than the 16 or so fleshed-out armies on the one hand, and vague rumours in the vast periphery on the other hand.

T9A has great potential to become the ultimate historically based dark fantasy setting. Drive home the sword to the hilt, and go farther than even Tolkien and Warhammer ever did in this niche:

Thanks a lot for your quick but thorough answer. That explains a lot for me.

Follow up question: I see several dwarven origins posted here. Are all races going to be developed with multiple origins like this in the future? Effectively creating a multitude of different factions.

Very much so in the background, though it remains to be seen how much of it will translate to rules.

Humans had lots of different cultures in Warhammer as well, though only Bretonnia, the Empire, Kislev and to some degree Tilea (Dogs of War) was covered by rules. Cathay, Estalia, Nippon, Ind and so on had to be proxied for tabletop, and that could easily be done with some imagination.

T9A is set to develop the background much further for what was in effect Warhammer's vague periphery, and the trend of releasing auxiliary army books (Makhar Confederacy / steppe riders & Åsklanders / vikings as of present) points also to future rules for this wide periphery. I'm not much into the wargame side of things, so I can't say much more than that as of present.

As to background, there sure is going to be a lot of different cultures for the various races. As you can see in the Dwarven proposals here, they all go back to the First Age, when everybody not reptilian was enslaved by Saurians (Lizardmen), having as their point of origin various mining operations across the world fuelled by Dwarf slaves under Saurian dominance. Rip away the Saurian overlordship in the wake of a giant comet strike, and you're left with many, many scattered pockets of Dwarf peoples developing with some isolation from each others, and some are completely isolated (the proposed Easter Island Dwarves and Cave Dwarves being completely isolated from everybody else). Over thousands of years these scattered Dwarves developed their own cultures and languages and techniques, staying in touch when possible, but often being swamped by tides of barbarian hordes rampaging across the lands and making communication hazardous.

You can find a good summary of confirmed official factions in the background here, by Ghiznuk, but bear in mind that many as-of-yet homebrew factions may well make it into the setting in some form or another (the more the merrier).

So Dwarves, mixing both official and setting-appropriate homebrew proposals, would run something like this in a rough list (to be expanded a little, but probably not much more):

Vetian (European) Dwarves. The Old World Dwarfs, basically. Much Celtic-inspired.

Northern Dwarves. Old Norse Dwarves up in the cold north. Nordic-based.

Copper Mountain Dwarves. Nabatean/Arabic Dwarves. Descended in ancient times from the same dwarf people as the Infernal Dwarves (with a variant language closely related to ID's speech), but uncorrupted, or so they claim.

And as to the benighted branches of the Dwarf species, we have the corrupted Infernal Dwarves, who turned to dark powers out of desperate need for worldly might:

ID of the Blasted Plains. Assyrian Dwarves, WHFB's Chaos Dwarfs.

ID of the Torture Valleys. Moche Dwarves, deadly enemies of the Inca-style Dwarves.

(You can find a lot of the homebrew faction proposals for Dwarves in this list.)

And the same is true for Humans: Sonnstahl/Holy Roman Empire of Germans. Equitaine/France. Tsuandan/China. Sagarika/India. Koghi/Mali. Vanhu/Zulu. Destrians/Iberians. Avras/Constantinople. And so on.

Sylvan Elves can as of presently be found both in the Wyscan forest (central European, basically WHFB's Wood Elves), but also up north as Borean Elves (Finno-Ugrian Taiga Elves) and on an island off Taphria/Africa's coast ("Tarzan Elves" in a brainstorming map I stumbled across).

Vermin Swarm/Skaven, same there. Byzantine/Eastern Roman for Vetia/Europe, Dogon for Taphria/Africa, with more variants sure to come.

Saurian Ancients/Lizardmen: The familiar Mesoamerican variant in Virentia/South America. A more African jungle variant in the equivalent of Congo's jungles in Taphria. An Indonesian/Khmer/Malaysian variant in farthest Augea (mirroring Lizardmen in Hinterlands of Kuresh in WHFB, but actually doing something with them in T9A).

And so on.

So lots of cultures on this growing, detailed fantasy smörgåsbord. A real patchwork, mirroring the historical realities upon which this fantasy is based. Because human history is an immensely rich source of inspiration, upon which both Tolkien and Warhammer drew.

A big, brave new world, of expanded horizons with lots in it everywhere.

In addition to KNC's very detailed repllies, I will comment on what is official and what is not.

T9A started with 16 factions, which closely match WH's 15 plus the short-lived infernal dwarves. All 16 are official. 2 more are envisioned, one of them would share inspiration with WH's short-lived DoW, the last one is not stabilized. However, only 4 of them (Sylvan Elves, Undying Dynasties, Warriors, Daemons) have seen so far a publication of the background, all others only have seen glimpses of background published. Additionally, 2 cultures have been published as "Auxiliary" (derived from Warriors). They are official, but not balanced for tournament. Additionally, T9A welcomes the creation by the community of "Homebrew" AB. They are not official but often are compatible with the official setting, and always are welcome additions.

Presumably I assume you're interested not only in Dwarves (your question) but also in Dark Elves (your presence here) and Orcs & Goblins (the name you've chosen).

For Dwarves, the AB has been released without BG. Vetian Dwarves are those represented in the official Dwarven Holds AB, and related to in various pieces of fluff.Kegiz Gavem may or may not be part of the official Dwarven Holds, this has been barely discussed in the background team. Kegiz Gavem may or may not be instead an Auxiliary AB, this is purely speculation.Kegiz Gavem has been delivered as a Homebrew AB, not official, may or may not inspire official work. Besides the regular Dwarves, there are Infernal Dwarves, which have for the moment the same treatment as the regular Dwarves.Anything else is due mostly to NKC prolific creation. Nothing is official, everything is highly interesting and quite compatible with the official fluff.

Dread Eleves have not seen anything more than the AB without fluff and pieces of fluff delivered here and there.They have commonalities with WH's DE but also differences, one of them being that there is no eternal fight against HE lasting for millenia - because it is not realistic.DE as well got their own share of Homebrew.

O&G are similarly provided with a slim AB without fluff, and pieces of fluff scattered here and there.Similarly, they have their share of Homebrew.

_________________Winds never stop blowing, Oceans are borderless. Get a ship and a crew, so the World will be ours! Today the World, tomorrow Nagg!{--|oBrotherhood of the Coast!o|--}

It's good to see that everything in the 9th Age homebrew and kind of 'crowd-built' at it's core. That way it is set up to include something for all. From those who like to develop new concepts and lore, those who like to develop the factin rules and balance things our to those who like to collect, convert and play with something special. It gives each player his/ her own satisfaction from the game.

Presumably I assume you're interested not only in Dwarves (your question) but also in Dark Elves (your presence here) and Orcs & Goblins (the name you've chosen).

My chosen name is actually a reference to a Little Richard song called Tutti Frutti, with the lyrics A-wob-bobba-looba, a-wob-bam-boo).. I would not dare to call Little Richard an orc. But yes, I’m interested in more factions and in the lore as well.

Artwork by DracarysDrekkar7, being a fantasy Lost Islander Dwarf concept for the Ninth Age. This artist has a deft hand at illustrating fantasy, capturing both an impression of rugged life and craft refinement in fine detail. Check out the ear ornaments, the knuckles and the axehead in particular!

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